From health to wealth – why the next chapter of Get Britain Working must be written locally
By Stephen Craker, Chief Executive of Communities 1st
Work is more than wages; it is connection, confidence and community. When ill‑health or disadvantage locks people out of good work, we all lose.
April’s lighter evenings bring a renewed sense of possibility, yet the labour‑market picture remains heavy. The Government’s new white paper on work and health is ambitious, promising to help hundreds of thousands of people back into good jobs. Yet recent history shows that national commitments succeed only when they are rooted in local reality.
We have lived that reality first‑hand. Across England, dedicated prevention funds that once underpinned community employment and wellbeing projects have thinned to a trickle. In our own patch the budget available to front‑line partners is now only a shadow of what it was a year ago - an experience colleagues in other counties report too. The result? Many of the neighbourhood‑level schemes that kept people well enough to work are being pared back just when demand is rising.
At the same time, mental‑health‑related economic inactivity continues to climb, particularly among young adults. Debt and insecure income compound the problem, creating a feedback loop of anxiety, absence and lost opportunity. We meet people every week whose biggest health challenge is the stress of not knowing how the next bill will be paid.
We know what breaks that loop. Person‑centred programmes that blend employment coaching with practical help on money, housing and social connection consistently outperform one‑size‑fits‑all approaches. They rely on stable, multi‑year contracts and on collaboration between the NHS, councils, employers and the voluntary sector.
Collaboration without resource is choreography without music. If prevention budgets are repeatedly raided to plug deficits elsewhere, the long‑term savings we all want will never materialise. Protecting those funds is therefore not a luxury; it is a fiscal strategy.
And this is where the national conversation so often loses sight of the real stage. In Hertfordshire the most creative ideas are taking shape inside spaces that feel nothing like official buildings. They are places where Communities 1st and dozens of partners weave health, learning and neighbourly connection into ordinary daily routines.
Step through the door of Your Community Hub on Leeming Road, Borehamwood and you will find a setting closer to a front‑room than a clinic—sofas, children’s drawings, someone offering a cuppa and biscuits the moment you arrive. There is no booking system; residents drop in, talk through a benefit query, draft a CV, or simply share a worry that has kept them awake. This “living‑room” model is replicating: a second hub will open later this year in the Galleria, Hatfield, while a third satellite operates from space we share at St Albans’ Civic Centre.
Next, we are creating new hubs in the southern villages of St Albans district—London Colney and Park Street. These spaces will host ConnectU, a holistic drop‑in run jointly by Communities 1st, Mind in Mid‑Herts, Citizens Advice, St Albans Foodbank and Emmaus. Visitors can talk through money worries, mental health, skills or housing in one warm conversation and leave with an agreed action plan - no repetition, just joined‑up support that respects the complexity of real lives.
Beyond the hubs we have built a constellation of thirty‑five “Better Days” sites. These are corner rooms in churches, spare offices in charities, scout halls on quiet afternoons—any setting where trusted local hosts welcome our staff and volunteers. A resident in Wheathampstead receives exactly the same debt advice as someone in Potters Bar, but in a room already familiar from toddler group or Sunday worship.
And then there is Communities Thirst, our coffee cart with a purpose. It serves flat whites while giving volunteers and individuals with additional needs their first taste of customer‑facing work. Several have since moved into paid hospitality jobs; each payslip is a small victory for inclusion.
What ties these projects together is a simple conviction: work and health are built in the everyday places people already love and trust. When those places are properly resourced, extraordinary things happen. Worries ease, opportunities surface, and local employers discover talent they might otherwise overlook.
So, as we step into a new financial year, the invitation is straightforward: come and see. Share a cuppa at the Borehamwood hub, drop in to a ConnectU session in London Colney, or chat with our barista volunteers as the cart steams into action. You will feel the energy that turns policy into progress—and you will also hear how fragile the rhythm is when funding falters. Mute a single instrument and the whole score starts to fall apart; starve one hub of support and the choreography we have painstakingly set loses its timing.
If we truly want to Get Britain Working, we must first secure the foundations already laid in our neighbourhoods. That means multi‑year investment streams, protection for prevention budgets, and the courage to back local partnerships for the long haul. The cost of that commitment is modest; the cost of letting these projects unravel would be felt in lost potential for years to come.
Stephen Craker,
Chief Executive, Communities 1st.
